Over the past couple decades, the media has been awash in propaganda suggesting that liberals are socially conscious, charitable individuals, while conservatives are greedy, uncaring intellectuals with unhealthy capitalist drives. But the data seems to suggest the truth is dramatically different than that.

The following points are all lifted directly from the article:

“Households headed by a conservative donate, on average, 30 percent more dollars than households headed by a liberal.”

But it’s not because conservatives have so much more money.

“Liberal families earn an average of 6 percent more per year than conservative families, and conservative families give more than liberal families within every income class, from poor to middle class to rich.”

It’s not just about money.

“In 2002, conservative Americans were more likely to donate blood each year, and did so more often, than liberals.”

However, the key factor is not politics, but religion.

“Religious conservatives are 28 percentage points more likely to give than secular conservatives, give nearly four times more dollars per year, and volunteer more than twice as frequently.”

“Religious liberals give at extremely high rates—very similar to religious conservatives, actually—while secular liberals give very little.”

But consider this striking difference between the conservative and liberal political groups:

“There are nearly twice as many secular liberals as there are religious ones. In contrast, there are nearly three times as many religious conservatives as secular ones.”

Considering that religion is a more accurate key to giving than political affiliation, that has strong implications for the future of liberal giving, since the pool of religious liberals is shrinking.

However, religion alone is not the only factor. Consider how ideology plays into it:

“A person who goes to church every week and strongly rejects the idea that it is the government’s responsibility to redistribute income will give, on average, 100 times more money to charity each year than a person who never attends a house of worship, and strongly believes that the government should reduce income differences between people. The religious person who is a government skeptic will also give about 50 times more to explicitly nonreligious causes.”

It’s not all about giving to churches.

“The fact is that religious people are 10 percentage points more likely to give money to explicitly secular charities, and 21 points more likely to volunteer.”

Religious people are even more ethical than secularists (big surprise, huh?):

“If a cashier accidentally gives a churchgoer too much change, the odds are better than half that he or she will return it, while the odds are more than six in 10 that a secularist will choose not to give it back.”

Europeans like to pick on Americans for their individualism, self-centeredness, etc. How do we compare with them when it comes to giving?

“In per capita private charity, Americans give three and a half times as much as the French, seven times as much as the Germans, and 14 times more than the Italians. To give an idea how much Americans give, consider the fact that American annual charitable giving exceeds the entire GDP of many European countries, such as Norway and Denmark.”

Taking children to church seems to play an important role:

“People who were taken to church every week as kids are 22 percentage points more likely to give charitably as adults than people who were never taken to a house of worship when they were young. The effect of childhood church attendance is clear even among those who fall away from their faith as adults: Secularist adults who were taken to church every week as children are 21 percentage points more likely to give than those who were brought up in secular households.”

Considering that charity is such an important Christian virtue, it’s very significant what we allow ourselves to believe, or be led to believe, about charitable giving in America.

Because my own answers would have been similar to these, I was nothing short of stunned when, about 10-12 years ago in college, I ran across a rather hefty, thick volume entitled, The Evils of Infant Baptism. I never read the book, but I wondered that someone could put so much thought into what might seem such an esoteric topic. Infant baptism may be unbiblical—but evil? Evil enough to write a whole book about it?

I never thought about it much after that, until yesterday when I was doing research for a series of articles entitled “Our Heritage” that I am writing for 3ABN.

In this series I am describing various movements and events, mostly since the 1700s, that helped shape Adventist thought and belief. As part of my research I’ve been reading the parallel chapters in The Great Controversy, picking up at chapter 16, “The Pilgrim Fathers.” If you have read that chapter, you know Ellen White has great things to say about the Puritans/Separatists/Pilgrims, as well as Roger Williams, a Baptist, who began the Rhode Island colony.

Adventists can trace spiritual ties to both the Puritans and the Baptists (the Baptists themselves are linked to the Puritan/Separatist movement). The name “Baptist” is derived historically from another group, the Anabaptists (“Rebaptizers”). This is because a central tenet of the Baptist faith is believer’s baptism, which was also a controversial teaching that the Anabaptists were persecuted for teaching.

Quoting form Wikipedia:

“Believer’s baptism and its variants … [were] anathema to the religious beliefs of most all other sects and deemed one of the worst sorts of heresy, for if infant baptism was in error, then all those practising other faiths were damned in the black-white world view and mindset of the age, for it was also strongly held that a second baptism was invalid and an offense against God—meaning the two beliefs were irreconcilably different and opposed without common ground. As one consequence, the Officials of the Holy Inquisition sought out and persecuted Anabaptists with the same vigor that they persecuted Jews, witches, in direct contrast to treatment given most other protestants.”

It is a fact that even Protestant leaders such as Zwingli persecuted (even to death) the Anabaptist faith. In a world where there were still many traces of sacramental theology, where grace and salvation comes through the rote act itself, it is not hard to imagine the outrage over the Anabaptists’ teaching that would nullify the supposedly essential infant baptism that had been practiced by an overwhelming majority on the European continent.

All of this reminded me of that book I had seen in that college library so long ago, so I did a quick Google search to see what I might find.

I don’t know if either of these men wrote the book I remembered, but they both give good summaries of the reasons why infant baptism is “evil.”

The Evils of Infant Baptism, by A. N. Arnold (you can get the general idea by reading the boldface section headings)

The Evils of Infant Baptism, by Robert Boyt C. Howell (a much fuller treatment of the subject)

When you realize people were killed for preaching against infant baptism, you can begin to understand how contentious this idea was.

I read a little of Arnold’s comments, and I must admit that he really has a solid case. It is clear from his presentation how the sacramental theology of infant baptism could destroy the spiritual significance of baptism and erode the meaning of Christianity altogether. There’s no exaggeration in that.

Moreover, many of his points apply equally well to all forms of modern “social club Christianity,” and it does not take much imagination to see how a “cheap grace” gospel message (as German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer called that type) can have the same effect. You sweep people in, pin a “Christian” label on them, and soon you’re left with nothing but a hollow shell of what Christianity is meant to be.

Furthermore, the opening paragraphs of the chapter in The Great Controversy that I was reading apply equally well, not only to infant baptism, but also to many trends gaining ground in Protestant Christianity today:

“The English Reformers, while renouncing the doctrines of Romanism, had retained many of its forms. Thus though the authority and the creed of Rome were rejected, not a few of her customs and ceremonies were incorporated into the worship of the Church of England. It was claimed that these things were not matters of conscience; that though they were not commanded in Scripture, and hence were nonessential, yet not being forbidden, they were not intrinsically evil. Their observance tended to narrow the gulf which separated the reformed churches from Rome, and it was urged that they would promote the acceptance of the Protestant faith by Romanists.

“To the conservative and compromising, these arguments seemed conclusive. But there was another class that did not so judge. The fact that these customs “tended to bridge over the chasm between Rome and the Reformation” (Martyn, volume 5, page 22), was in their view a conclusive argument against retaining them. They looked upon them as badges of the slavery from which they had been delivered and to which they had no disposition to return.They reasoned that God has in His word established the regulations governing His worship, and that men are not at liberty to add to these or to detract from them. The very beginning of the great apostasy was in seeking to supplement the authority of God by that of the church. Rome began by enjoining what God had not forbidden, and she ended by forbidding what He had explicitly enjoined.”

Ellen White, The Great Controversy, 289

So the next time someone suggests an apparently harmless change to your church’s service, ask: Does its form draw the mind back to fallen religion? Is it adding something to worship that God has not requested?

When confronted with changes in standards, membership criteria, or theology, ask: Will this tend to convert unbelievers, or subvert the church? Will this draw people closer to God, or are we simply drawing a bigger circle to take more worldly people in?

And remember the evils of infant baptism.

“Jews do not associate with Samaritans,” John says (4:9) in commenting on Jesus’ conversation with the woman at the well. The two groups had a long and grievous history, like estranged family members. They had a partly shared worldview (both revered the Pentateuch, though in different versions), a shared point of origin (“our father Jacob,” as the woman put it to Jesus), and well-defined points of contention (where should you worship, at Mount Gerizim or Jerusalem?). They knew each other; therefore, they did not associate with each other.

Gospel-writer Luke tells us of the Samaritan village that refused hospitality to Jesus and his followers. Why? Because they were Passover pilgrims headed for Jerusalem. Samaritans didn’t like Jews doing their Jewish thing. James and John took the inhospitality for a religious affront; in fact, they were ready to firebomb the village (Luke 9:51–56). These groups had a familiarity that bred suspicion and mutual grudges.

So I sometimes find life in America. The problem is not that my religion is strange. The problem is that my religion is familiar. Like Samaritans and Jews, Christians and non-Christians have a partly shared worldview (our Western traditions, which include the Bible), a shared point of origin (Christendom), and well-defined points of contention (the exclusivity of Christ). We are familiar with what each other believes. We’re suspicious of one another. So we start off with a grudge.

You can read the full article here.

I thought his article presented an intriguing parallel. While no comparison is perfect, there are some compelling similarities between Samaria’s relationship to Judea and postmodernism’s to Christianity.

How can we communicate new ideas to the people of a culture that think they understand everything about us? who think that all our best qualities they already possess in purer form? who in their narrowness and prejudice can only see us as narrow and prejudiced?

How can we deal with a smug and cynical movement that seems determined to view all of us collectively in the disfigured, pretentious form of medieval European Christianity? that tries to recast moral imperatives as political jockeying? that gives more credit to Christians on the outer fringes than those who make up the greater portion of the fabric of faith?

Jesus’ interaction with the Samaritan woman at the well gives some important clues. One of them is that arguing is pointless. Interact. Meet needs. Speak plainly. Offer salvation.

• Today’s 21 year olds have spent 20,000 hours watching television, 10,000 hours playing video games, 10,000 hours talking on the phone, and have sent and received 250,000 emails or instant messages.
• More than 70% of U.S. 4 year olds have used a computer.
• 1 out of every 8 couples married in the U.S. in 2005 met online.
• The amount of technical information is doubling every two years. By 2010, it is predicted to double every 72 hours.

The recent post, “Rick Warren on Engaging Culture Relevantly and Biblically,” is worth reading. I really like their posting style: bite-sized and “salty.” Definitely recommended reading.

Here are a few snippets I really liked:

• It is easy to be relevant if you are not biblical. It is easy to be biblical if you are not relevant. You need to be both relevant and biblical.
• It takes different types of churches to reach different types of people.
• If you can’t learn from other people, you have an ego problem.
• The problem with a lot of churches today is they would rather be creative than effective.

If you know of any internet sources that would help others be more relevant and biblical in their ministry, please share them with me.